Reaganomics Was a Good Thing

I'm far from being an economist and I've always thought that Reaganomics was bad, but I recently learned that under Reagan, the American economy prospered and grew, including the decline of unemployment and inflation rates and the incline of entrepreneurship. Apparently, this success even continued throughout the Bush Sr. and Clinton days.

Some things of course worsened under Reagan economic-wise, but it seemed like nothing catastrophic happened (the crack epidemic was mostly a socio-political issue imo). It does seem, however, that the economy under the Reagan days could've been even better if a couple of social and educational programs were implemented. But that might be neither here nor there.

So does this all of this generally justify Reaganomics (and perhaps laissez-faire by association?) as a legitimate and productive economic system? This might've been touched on a little bit in that Thomas Sowell appreciation thread, so I'm curious at the least to know what @jono and @High Revolutionary think of all of this.

Replies

Yes, all of that definitely seems true. I do know that Reagan was one of the few presidents who never raised the minimum wage. And I do know that Reagan's tenure as president was plagued with poverty. It would come as no surprise to me that the richer only got richer and the poorer only got poorer. And I think that Reagan basically blamed poor people for being poor (which is something many rich and privleged people do all of the time) at one point during his second term.

I guess when you read between the lines, Reaganomics did do a lot of bad. And I agree with what you said about the crack epidemic too. Society and economy are inseperably linked.

No reliable economist in 2012 will ever agree that "trickle-down economics" works for anyone except the very rich. It doesn't even work in theory considering that that's been the economic model for monarchies and feudal systems for millennia.

If the goal is to create and consolidate power within a small, rich ruling class and establish or reinforce a poor working class then yeah - "Reaganomics" works very well.